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BSEC 20th Anniversary Summit starts in Istanbul

26 June 2012 07:51 (UTC +04:00)

Istanbul. Ali Ahmadov â€“ APA. The 20th Anniversary Summit of the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) is held in Istanbul, Turkey today. APA correspondent reports from Turkey that President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev arrived in Istanbul to attend the summit. Georgian, Romanian, Moldovan and Serbian presidents will also join the jubilee summit. Albania and Bulgaria will be represented by the prime ministers.

Serbia and Turkey will preside over the summit dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the organization. These countries will also chair the organization in 2012. The development of relations will be discussed at the meeting and Istanbul Declaration will be signed in the end.

The ways of the settlement of regional frozen conflicts are expected to be discussed at the summit. A Turkish diplomatic source told APA that the final declaration will describe the BSECâ€™s place in the world, its activity, security and energy security. Energy pipelines and energy security play an important role in the Black Sea region and BSEC attaches great importance to these issues.

The unsettled conflicts in the region will also be in the focus of attention. The source said that the summit couldnâ€™t solve the conflicts, because BSEC was an economic organization. â€œWe try to organize political dialogues for the settlement of these conflicts. We donâ€™t say that we will solve the conflicts tomorrow, but the organization creates an opportunity to discuss such issues. The conflicts prevent economic development, but the settlement of the conflicts can create opportunities to carry out economic projects between the countriesâ€, the diplomatic source said.

According to the diplomats, a number of projects are discussed for strengthening of BSEC activity and one of these projects is the construction of transport corridor â€“ belt highway around the Black Sea. The 7700-km highway will allow passenger and cargo transport and connect the region with the Caspian region. The second issue to be discussed at the summit is visa facilitation between the BSEC countries. It will allow strengthening of trade and economic relations between the countries. BSEC also intends to strengthen its relations with the European Union.

The Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation was established 20 years ago on the purpose of strengthening and developing the economic cooperation between the countries of the region. At present the total area of member countries is 20 million sq m, but the number of inhabitants taking together is 240 million.

The main goal of the organization is to develop cooperation between member counties in such spheres as transport, trade, economic development (the most significant field), communication and information technologies, science, tourism, education, customs and also investment.

The organization was established with support of the Parliamentary Assembly and Black Sea Trade and Development Bank.

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation will arrange a meeting within the summit. Besides it, the Academic forum started yesterday with the participation of member countries with their strategic researches. The participants will discuss the further prospects of think-tanks at the forum. The business organizations representing their countries at the summit will hold round table talks. There also will be organized the forums of non-governmental organizations within the summit.